Category Archives: Events

CRISP is delighted to announce a new book series ‘Routledge Studies in Surveillance’. The series is edited by its directors, Kirstie Ball, William Webster and Charles Raab and produced in conjunction with Routledge. Studies of surveillance take place in many academic disciplines and it is time for a coherent series which represents the sheer diversity of surveillance scholarship.

Now is the time to be writing about the causes and consequences of surveillance. The much-hyped growth in computing power and data analytics in public and private life, successive scandals concerning privacy breaches, national security and human rights, ensures that it remains at the forefront of public debate. Surveillance shapes how the world is experienced and enacted. It has consequences for equality, political participation, societal structures, social relations, security and the working of economic systems.

This series aims to help to overcome some of the disciplinary boundaries that surveillance scholars face by providing an informative and diverse range of books that represent the breadth of discussion currently taking place.

If you are interested in producing a monograph or edited collection for the series, please get in touch with either Kirstie, William or Charles. Routledge’s guidelines for book proposals can be found here. We especially welcome proposals from authors across the social sciences, sciences, technology, law, arts and humanities.

CRISP is hosting a workshop to explore contemporary citizen-centred approaches to engaging citizens about their experiences of privacy in the digital world. The ways in which citizen participation and engagement are evolving in the digital world will also be explored. The workshop will feature a series of contributions from expert speakers. It is designed to be interactive and will provide opportunities for those attending to participate in the debate. Refreshments and lunch will be provided. Attendance is free of charge, but places are limited and available on a ‘first come first served’ basis. To register a place at the workshop please email: CRISP@stir.ac.uk. before 17 February 2017.

Workshop Theme
In the digital era our ‘digital personas’ and the data streams we create become more important in determining how we relate to others, the services to which we get access and in shaping our life-chances. Whilst the extent of citizens’ involvement with digital technologies is easy to see, the processes associated with making digital technologies work, despite their significance, are opaque and difficult to understand. This workshop aims to examine contemporary citizen engagement mechanisms in order to understand the opportunities and constraints of participation in the digital era. Such practices include surveys, focus groups, public meetings, consultation exercises, citizens’ juries and panels. The workshop will focus on how these mechanisms have been used to engage citizens in relation to issues associated with privacy. A further focus will be to examine whether new digital technologies themselves offer opportunities to design citizen-centric engagement mechanisms and if so what challenges are posed to access, representation and effectiveness. Our use of digital services can also provide a wealth of information that can be used to inform public policy and service development. In this respect, participation in engagement activities happens by simply being digital. But how then may citizens engage with the production of digital innovations which so affect their privacy and their life chances?

The workshop aims to explore the implications of citizen-centred engagement mechanisms and citizens’ views about privacy in the digital era. Digitised versions of traditional participatory mechanisms and new digital ways of participating through the co-production of goods, services and public policy will be examined.

The workshop will seek to address a range of issues and questions, including:

• What mechanisms are useful for engaging citizens about issues associated with privacy?
• Do new digital technologies offer new ways to engage citizens?
• To what extent does the co-production of digital services imply a degree of citizen engagement?
• What are the methodological and practical issues associated with designing effective engagement mechanisms?
• Does engagement lead to better services and public policy?
• What is the citizen experience of being involved in such mechanisms?

Speakers

Mhairi Quiroz-Aitken, University of Edinburgh: Public engagement with data science: Reflections on past experiences and future approaches.

Malcolm Oswald, University of Manchester: Health data, privacy and the public good: what can we learn from 4 citizens’ juries?

Tjerk Timan, Tilburg University: Turning surveillance on its head: The role and (double?) meaning of participation in studying surveillance.

Sally Dibb, University of Coventry, Engaging Citizens in the Privacy and Security Debate: Social Science meets the Citizen Summit Method

Routledge Studies in Surveillance Book Series
CRISP intends to incorporate the presentations at the workshop into an edited collection for the new Routledge Studies in Surveillance Book Series, which is to be launched in 2017, and which is edited by the CRISP Directors.

Visiting researcher Dr Tjerk Timan will deliver a seminar entitled ‘Re-inventing privacy for the 21st century – why and how?’ on Wednesday 15th February from 12 – 2pm. The seminar will be held in Lecture Room 2 in the School of Man
agement, The Gateway Building, North Haugh, St Andrews.

Abstract

Due to novel ICTs, classical distinctions of spaces such as the home, the workplace, or public space are falling apart. One of the consequences of the blurring of such spaces is that core values in society are being influenced and modified by these new technologies: they are being challenged. One of the values I am interested in is privacy, be it in the home or in our streets. Not only socially the value of privacy is changing due to novel networks of information that are permeating almost all corners of life, also legally and regulatory, things are falling apart. Think for instance of the legal principle of “my home is my castle’ that is under threat due to technologies that allows to ‘look inside’, or the protection of personal data and belongings, that is under threat when phones are seized as an ‘accidental extra’ during an arrest.

Where the EU prides itself with being a forerunner when it comes to the regulation and protection of citizens’ data, there might be more at stake than only data, or ‘informational’ privacy in society. In a recent paper, we propose a new typology for privacy, in which we go beyond privacy as data protection only. In this talk, I will try to explain what we aim to do in this project, I will briefly highlight some cases and some theoretical lines of inquiry , to be ending up in a discussions that can take on many different directions. Guiding questions there can be: “is privacy still an adequate term when describing what is at stake?”, “what kinds of conceptual or regulatory solutions can be found to these problems” or “How and to what extend can we develop alternative paths of technology-development that is more privacy/ human-rights-friendly

Faith communities use surveillance technologies to protect their buildings and worshippers. Religious leaders sometimes use their equivalent of customer data management software to track attendance numbers or to better understand the profile of their community. Individual religious believers engage in surveillance of one another through social networking sites.

Surveillance technologies are not neutral devices but shape their users. How then are religious practices being shaped by not only surveillance directed towards religious groups but, more importantly for this particular workshop, by the use or consumption of surveillance? What do faith communities need to learn from surveillance studies? What might the field of surveillance studies learn from the particular faith-based concerns of religious believers who are users of surveillance technologies?

In this second in a series of three workshops, the main presenters will include Dr Tim Hutchings (University of Stockholm), Dr Jason Pridmore and Dr Daniel Trottier (Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Rotterdam), Rabbi Ute Steyer (Stockholm), Very Rev. Kelvin Holdsworth (Provost of St Mary’s Scottish Episcopal Cathedral, Glasgow, Scotland) Dr Susanne Wigorts Yngvesson (Stockholm School of Theology); and Dr Eric Stoddart (University of St Andrews).

Established scholars, doctoral students and religious practitioners are welcome to propose papers. Academics from the fields of, for example, sociology, philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and cultural studies are particularly welcome. It is anticipated that faith practitioners from a range of traditions will be represented.

The workshop will run from 2pm on Monday 20 March – 1pm on Wednesday 22 March 2017. It will be held at a venue in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Places are limited for this subsidised event. There is no registration fee but participants must apply for a place. Refreshments and lunch will be provided but accommodation and dinner is arranged by participants at their own expense. Some funds are available to support doctoral students and early career researchers with travel costs.

There will be a mix of plenary presentations and shorter papers. Proposals for papers (20 mins duration) are due by 15th December 2016. Please send your abstract and title (no more than 500 words) along with contact details and brief biographical information to Dr Eric Stoddart es61@st-andrews.ac.uk. Preliminary enquiries are welcome at this address.

Applications for financial assistance with travel from doctoral students and early career researchers should be made in writing at the same time.

CRISP is pleased to announce that the 2016 CRISP Annual Lecture will be delivered on 21st June 2016 at The Teviot Lecture Theatre, University of Edinburgh by Duncan Campbell. Among other things, Duncan is known for his pioneering journalism and campaign activity around government communications surveillance. His lecture is entitled:

Big Data and Broken Law: Suspicionless Surveillance in a World of Ubiquitous Data

Attendance is free, but participants must register for tickets by emailing CRISP@stir.ac.uk

The third biannual CRISP Doctoral Training School will take place at the University of Edinburgh from the 20–24 June 2016. The School will feature five days of intensive training in multi-disciplinary research methods and skills in the field of Surveillance Studies. It will also feature a range of knowledge-exchange and research-training activities, as well as providing social and networking opportunities.

The school will be delivered via a range of interactive lectures and workshops and will be facilitated by leading surveillance scholars. Students will have the opportunity to apply this training to their own doctoral research and to learn transferable research skills. Scheduled speakers include (in no particular order):